Why was the F2G so "slow"

[Shortround6]

Well, they spent money on 397 F4U-5s.

 

[GreenKnight121]

Has everyone forgotten what direction the Navy was taking at the time? Think JET. It was likely that post-war engineering could have tweaked the F2G to some exciting performance numbers, but jet-powered aircraft were coming online, so why spend the time, effort, and money.

Well, they spent money on 397 F4U-5s.

Half of which were radar-equipped night fighters, and all of which were armed with 4x20mm cannon - and which had better performance than the F4U-4!

It (like all of the late Corsair variants) was also an excellent ground-attack aircraft, with a higher payload than the F8F Bearcat (4,000lb for -4 & -5, 8,200 lb for the ground-attack-only AU-1 vs 1,000 for the F-8F).

There was also the F7F Tigercat 2-engined heavy carrier fighter in production at the end of WW2.

As for the jets:
McDonnell FH Phantom - first flight 26 January 1945 (with only one engine installed, as only one was available!), first carrier landing & take-off 19 July 1946. 62 built, served mainly as an airshow demonstrator & transition trainer until 1954.

North American FJ-1 Fury - 11 September 1946, 33 built, made one carrier deployment, served as a "transition-to-jet" trainer until 1953. Type was parallel and inter-related development with F-86 Sabre.

Vought F6U Pirate - first flight 2 October 1946, 33 built, retired 1950. Barely useable as a trainer.

McDonnell F2H Banshee - first flight 11 January 1947, 895 built, retired 1961.

Grumman F9F Panther - first flight 21 November 1947, 1,382 built (plus 1,988 swept-wing Cougars, which used the same fuselage). Retired (F9F-8T/TF-9J) 1974.

 

[Dawncaster]

The other major problem the F2G had was the F8F-1 which could do everything the F2G could and more, much more. It was lighter, smaller and faster, it could climb higher and faster and was faster at altitude using a proven engine, it was the biggest reason the F2G was cancelled.

F8F-1 was not superior to F2G for same period. F2G was superior to F8F-1 in this case.

Such a conclusion like quoted post is usually made by comparing the F2G's performance using the military power(30 minutes limit) with the F8F-1's war emergency power(5 mintues limit) with water-injection. However, the 1944 vought data included performance using 60"hg 3,375 horsepower, which outperforms the F8F-1 at its equivalent power rating. The F2G project planned to install R-4360 with 3,650 hp(like XP-72), maintaining a speed of 465 mph at 20,000 feet and achieving a speed of 435 mph at sea level. Since the F2G project was canceled, these capabilities were not officially formulated, but the Navy knew the F2G-1 outperformed the F8F-1.

As follows, at 60"hg with 130 grade fuel, F2G was superior to F8F-1 for climb, speed, range and firepower(1944 data was x6 MG version).

max climb rate : 5,115 fpm(F2G-1) vs 4,570 fpm(F8F-1)
max speed at sea level : 397 mph(F2G-1) vs 382 mph(F8F-1)
max speed at 15,000 ft : 425 mph(F2G-1) vs 405 mph(F8F-1)
max speed at critical altitude : 426 mph at 14,600 ft(F2G-1) vs 421 mph at 19,700 ft(F8F-1)
time to 20,000 ft : 5.5 min(F2G-1) vs 5.9 min(F8F-1)
combat radius with drop tanks : 525 miles(F2G-1) vs 391 miles(F8F-1)

And the Navy's conclusion on this was as follows.

'Development was justified by an October 1944 BuAer Design Co-ordination report, which compared the F2G-1 (modified for carrier operation) with the F8F Bearcat. The F2G-1 using military power would be substantially faster than the Bearcat using war emergency power and it was also superior to the Bearcat using the R- 2800E engine(F8F with E-series R-2800 = F8F-2), except at high altitude. The F2G-1 was superior in speed over the F8F with the E engine from sea level to 17,000ft. The F8F-E climbed faster. However, the F2G-1 had a much higher stalling speed (92mph vs 82.5mph), which made it impractical to use from escort carriers. The F8F had a substantially better take-off but a somewhat shorter combat radius (the F2G could carry two drop tanks rather than one to gain even more radius). Goodyear claimed that adapting the F2G to carriers would require only limited additional weight. Design Co-ordination recommended continuing development on the basis of the speed advantage the F2G would enjoy at low altitude over other conventional fighters.'

However, after the war, as a specialized low-altitude aircraft, F2G had no merit compared to the F8F-1, which was able to operate on an escort carrier and developed and mass-produced faster. Since then, the performance of the F8F-1 has been improved with a 70"hg output using 115/145 fuel, the performance advantage of F2G(60"hg) has been narrowed down to only some altitudes.

 

[Leonidas]

That's still awfully fast for an aircraft designed to take off and land on a boat. We should always keep that in mind, they weren't built for a nice flight strip on a huge field, they were made to land on a postage stamp out in the ocean. To get 400 knots from a boat-based aircraft was a pretty big deal back then. That they were able to manage that back then is a pretty good thing.

I do believe that there were multiple versions of the F2G one of which was carrier based and the other being ground based.

 

[Metrallaroja]

F8F-1 was not superior to F2G for same period. F2G was superior to F8F-1 in this case.

Such a conclusion like quoted post is usually made by comparing the F2G's performance using the military power(30 minutes limit) with the F8F-1's war emergency power(5 mintues limit) with water-injection. However, the 1944 vought data included performance using 60"hg 3,375 horsepower, which outperforms the F8F-1 at its equivalent power rating. The F2G project planned to install R-4360 with 3,650 hp(like XP-72), maintaining a speed of 465 mph at 20,000 feet and achieving a speed of 435 mph at sea level. Since the F2G project was canceled, these capabilities were not officially formulated, but the Navy knew the F2G-1 outperformed the F8F-1.

As follows, at 60"hg with 130 grade fuel, F2G was superior to F8F-1 for climb, speed, range and firepower(1944 data was x6 MG version).

max climb rate : 5,115 fpm(F2G-1) vs 4,570 fpm(F8F-1)
max speed at sea level : 397 mph(F2G-1) vs 382 mph(F8F-1)
max speed at 15,000 ft : 425 mph(F2G-1) vs 405 mph(F8F-1)
max speed at critical altitude : 426 mph at 14,600 ft(F2G-1) vs 421 mph at 19,700 ft(F8F-1)
time to 20,000 ft : 5.5 min(F2G-1) vs 5.9 min(F8F-1)
combat radius with drop tanks : 525 miles(F2G-1) vs 391 miles(F8F-1).

This are clean numbers at MILITARY POWER (52'' 3000hp) from the 1944 ACP, so it seems that your data is at military power and with the two pylons:

We also know that water injection was installed in mid-late 1945 by P&W and that the Navy did improvements in the scoop at Pax until at least 1947:

The 57 was an almost unmodified navy plane that was painted and raced in the Cleveland races with some of the fastest speeds:

So I think it is safe to say that the Navy did major improvements to the F2G since 1944 ACP (the only official report that we have about it) from adding water injection to probably even using higher octane ratings, with this modifications the F2G speeds might be one of the fastest as a combat prop fighter.
Reports about the F2G are mainly in the National Archives, if one day we could get to them we would find (or not) if this modifications were done and how fast the Patuxent tests were.
F2G-1 Patuxent Final Demo Part 1 and Part 2
FG-1, FG-4, F2G-1, F2G-2 Flight Reports

 

[Metrallaroja]

From this we can do a very solid guess with ACP correction values, for estimating the speed of F2G-1 clean with 6x.50 and 2400 rounds 100/130 fuel and water injection:

• 423mph/680kph at SL
• 435mph/700kph at 5000feet/1500m
• 447mph/720kph at 14000feet/4300m

add 3mph for 4x.50 configuration
Someone beat this low alt performance in a prop fighter

 

[GregP]

The real killer for R-4360-powered airplanes was maintenance. It had to be worth changing 56 spark plugs (just ONE instance if increased maintenance costs) and the associated bolts. etc. to get to them. In the case of the F2G, it just wasn't worth the cost of maintenance for the increase in performance seen over the standard F4U airplanes.

Another airplane killed by maintenance was the F-14 Tomcat. Just before it was stood down, the mighty F-14 was consuming 120 man-hours of maintenance for every flight hour. By contrast, the F-18 Hornet was consuming 20 man-hours of maintenance per fight hour. It was an easy choice to make if you are considering the costs of flying Naval aircraft as a major factor in the budget. The cost differential would pay for a few Hornets and the percent of the force ready for flight would jump up by quite a bit. A win-win, if ever there was one.

 

[tomo pauk]

From this we can do a very solid guess with ACP correction values, for estimating the speed of F2G-1 clean with 6x.50 and 2400 rounds 100/130 fuel and water injection:

Thanks for the graphs.
Term 'WER' here should note that water injection is already used?

 

[Metrallaroja]

Thanks for the graphs.
Term 'WER' here should note that water injection is already used?

Dont thank me, thank RyanC. He was the one that send them to me

Yes, WER is with water injection to push the engine to around 60" and 3400hp.